Exploring basic networking

Today, it’s almost inconceivable to imagine a computer not connected to some sort of network or the internet. Our ever-increasing online presence, cloud computing, mobile communications, and Internet of Things (IoT) would not be possible without the highly distributed, high-speed, and scalable networks serving the underlying data traffic; yet the basic networking principles behind the driving force of the modern-day internet are decades old. Networking and communication paradigms will continue to evolve, but some of the original primitives and concepts will still have a long-lasting effect in shaping the building blocks of future communications.

This section will introduce you to a few of these networking essentials and, hopefully, spark your curiosity for further exploration. Let’s start with computer networks.

Computer networks

A computer network is a group of two or more computers (or nodes) connected via a physical medium (cable...